Although Washington took part in no fighting for a long time after Monmouth, he, of course, as commander-in-chief, had much to do in the direction of other men. His was the plan to capture Stony Point and Paulus Hook, two fortresses on the Hudson, occupied by the enemy. Tradition asserts that when Washington proposed to General Wayne the storming of Stony Point, "Mad Anthony " replied, "General, I'll storm hell, if you will only plan it." Washington suggested to Wayne, "The usual time for exploits of this kind is a little before day, for which reason a vigilant officer is then more on the watch. I therefore recommend a midnight hour."

On the morning of July 16th, 1779, Washington received the following note:

"STONY POINT, two o'clock A.M.

"16 July, 1779.

"DEAR GENERAL: The fort and garrison, with Colonel Johnson, are ours. Our officers and men behaved like men who are determined to be free.

"Yours, most sincerely,

"ANTHONY WAYNE."

Congress, besides giving medals to Wayne and to two other officers, passed a vote of thanks to Washington "for the vigilance, wisdom, and magnanimity with which he had conducted the military operations of the States," especially as manifested in the orders for the late attack.

The attempt on Paulus Hook under Major Henry Lee, who originated it, began successfully, but ended in cowardice. Clinton reported of the Americans that "their retreat was as disgraceful as their attack had been spirited and well-conducted," and Lee, in a private letter, said: "In my report to General Washington, I passed the usual general compliments to the troops under my command. I did not tell the world that near one-half of my countrymen left me.”

CHAPTER XIII

ARNOLD'S TREACHERY AND HAMILTON'S PIQUE

"When in the autumn of 1780 the army was preparing to hut in the wood back of Newburgh, the General being a little advanced of me (in going over the ground selected for the hutment), a countryman fell along side, and looking forward to the General, said to me, 'Now, I suppose he is the greatest man in the world !'”— PICKERING.

WASHINGTON was constantly in favor of vigor in war, whatever the chances of peace. "We may rely upon it that we shall never have Peace till the enemy are convinced that we are in a condition to carry on the war. It is no new maxim in politics that for a nation to obtain Peace, or insure it, it must be prepared for war." Everything was bent, in his mind, toward increasing the efficiency of the army, and an illustration of this may be seen in his discrimination about exchanges. He favored exchange of officers, but not of privates, since the American privates were enlisted for a short time and he frankly put political above what he called "humane" motives. He recommended strong measures, military and civil, and he had little sympathy with the party which

distrusted army principles"-a party which remained alive, with Mifflin and Gates still active, but which was much weaker than it had been a few years earlier. One absurd report in a Tory newspaper was, that Congress had asked France to invite Washington to Versailles, as a polite mode of escaping his control. Legislative debates still included fears that too much power was in the hands of one man. How worthy those hands were to hold any amount of authority was about to be shown again, in a singularly conclusive way, by the manner in which he met two particularly distressing misfortunes. One of the men whom he most admired betrayed his country; another peevishly quarrelled with its general. Nothing in Washington's history shows his moral greatness more vividly than the calm, right, decided and magnanimous acts with which he met these exhibitions of ingratitude.

One of them is as dramatic an episode as our history contains. Throughout the war, influenced by the bravery and ability of General Arnold, Washington sided with him against the hostility of Congress, which refused him well-earned promotion, partly from factional motives, partly from a dislike of his cupidity. Adams had written to his wife in 1777: "I spent last evening in the war office with General Arnold. He has been basely slandered and libelled. The regulars say,

'he fought like Julius Cæsar.' I am wearied to death with the wrangles between military officers, high and low. They quarrel like cats and dogs. They worry one another like mastiffs, scrambling for rank and pay, like apes for nuts." When Congress voted that Arnold should be reprimanded for the use which he made of private property in Philadelphia, Washington worded the reprimand so that it sounded almost like a compliment. One of Arnold's letters to Washington said: "As Congress have stamped ingratitude as a current coin, I must take it, I wish your Excellency, for long and eminent services, may not be paid in the same coin." When Arnold sought the command of the powerful fortress at West Point, Washington, not for a moment suspecting improper motives, gave it to him.

On the day on which Arnold was to scatter his garrison about the highlands so that troops could be carried up the river by British ships and take possession of the fort, he received a letter informing him that the officer with whom he had arranged the surrender, Major André, had been captured and the plot revealed. He went to his wife's room and told her that some transactions had come to light which had forever banished him from his country. She fell in a swoon. Arnold left her so. After she recovered, she drew

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